Quick– read the following paragraph and tell me what you think:
The women legally arrived…in 2002; (their employers) then confiscated their passports and refused to let them leave their home, authorities said.
Domestic slavery? Nightmarish abuse of Sri Lankan maids, at the hands of Arab employers? That’s what I thought. I was only half right (Thanks, KXB).
Two Indonesian women were subjected to beatings and other abuse and forced by a couple to work in their home in a swank Long Island neighborhood without pay for several years, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Authorities said they uncovered the abuse after one of the women was found by police wandering outside a doughnut shop on Sunday morning, wearing only pants and a towel…[IHT]
Apparently, employees at the store thought the woman was homeless, until she started slapping herself and trying to utter the word “master”.
Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 35, and her husband Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, both from India, entered not guilty pleas at their arraignment in U.S. District Court and were ordered held pending a Thursday bail hearing. Their attorney did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. [IHT]
The women were only allowed outside of the house if they were taking out the garbage; when anyone visited, they were stashed in a 3×3′ closet. That’s pleasant compared to this:
The women were subjected to beatings, scalding water thrown on them, and forced to climb up and down stairs as punishment for misdeeds, prosecutors said. In one case, they said, one of the women was forced to eat 25 hot chili peppers at one time.
One of the women also told authorities she was cut behind her ears with a small pocket knife and both were forced to sleep on mats in the kitchen. They were fed so little, they claimed, that they were forced to steal food and hide it from their “captors.”[IHT]
It’s just so depressing. What quirk of destiny relegates one South Asian woman to endure the beatings of her Arab mistress while halfway around the world, her desi– albeit privileged– counterpart metes out similar viciousness to another brown human being? Sri Lankan and Fillipino maids get abused in the middle east, the Indonesian survivors from this cringe-inducing story were enslaved by people our parents might associate with, right here in the U.S and desperate, option-less women everywhere are exploited by those who should know better but don’t care. For shame.
I don’t give a sh*t if she got into the habit of abuse when she was young? What the hell kind of excuse is that? I hope this whole family rots with their shopolic daughters and their porsche and mercedez benz’s.
I didnt know treating people like animals was excusable if it started when they were young?
Kusala (#148):
I know I can google this to find out the relative frequency of each phrase, but I’ve noticed “female genital mutilation” to be most commonly used in most of the literature I’ve seen. Is “castration” supplanting that? I’m just curious.
Female genital mutilation (or FGM) is the phrase commonly used in state statutes that prohibit the practice. But activist groups seem to prefer the term “castration”, especially because many of them feel that FGM or “female circumcision” does not tell the full story, and is somewhat euphemistic. As I said before, I think there’s a certain emotional appeal to calling a practice the most serious/objectionable word you can come up with. It’s much more likely to get people to sit up and take notice, which is really what activism is all about in this setting.
I did not mean that if she was spoiled as a kid she should get away with it. She should be punished if proven, she have done these horrible things to other human beings.
Thanks, hema. I knew “FGM” came to replace “circumcision” because of the euphemism factor. I find this all interesting because “castration” sounds like a euphimism to me in comparison to “mutilation”, which seems about as heinous as as a description could get. Hmm. Live and learn. I suspect, however, that FGM is probably still the more commonly-used term across the board.
Cultural relativism has no role in mitigating these cruel employers’ punishment.
I don’t know where this thinking comes from that India and Indian laws condone this type of abuse for their servants.
These people are horrible and I’m tempted out of anger, to want them to suffer the same abuse that they heaped on their employees.
From my own experience – my family in India would never treat their maids like this and would be horrified if someone did treat their domestic help like this….They would never see their Indian culture, as mitigating the punishment of these employers’ abuse of their domestic help.
There is a lot in Indian culture and the constitution that reviles this abuse and would/should hold people accountable. There is no excuse in cultural realitivism that would allow human beings to treat their fellow human beings in this manner, and certainly not the excuse that their Indian culture condones this cruelty.
Its an insult to India to think that these people’s Indian background, somehow makes them less culpable for their abuse – they should know better, and there’s so many prominent examples in Indian culture, that show that you should not treat your fellow human beings like this. These “hindus” should be born-again as rats in a lab.
Varsha looks like the personification of evil. This couple may be rich but they lack human compassion and a basic sense of humanity. They should be punished for their actions.
They give the rest of the Indians a bad name…the entire family including the children should be subjected to the same torture they inflicted on the helpless women. They should be ashamed and this story should not be forgotten about…KARMA!!!!!!!!
BS. I am sure such cases exist in India and it is still common for servants in India to be treated worse than maids in the U.S. But the behavior in this case is far from the norm in India. Hell, it would not have been the norm even 20 years ago.
What were the friends of this couple doing as they were mistreating these slaves er I mean maids? I would like to see interviews with their friends and relatives.
A few other things: 1) Do not feel sorry for Pooja losing her privacy. It is no different from sites putting up links to politician’s kids MySpace pages where they make fools of themselves. She is 22. The “kids” were witnesses to these acts. They are old enough to at least tell their parents to stop even if they did not want to turn them in. Besides, there is a possibililty they may have been part of the whole deal. Just out of curiosity, how do you view her profile? All I see is a thumbnail pic with her name. No info. Did she edit it down? 2) The good thing is when these two monsters are found guilty, the maids will have NO problem finding a huge selection of lawyers willing to represent them for a contingency fee to sue the pants off of these people for at least a million dollars. These two monsters will go bankrupt after all of this.
This post says that they were forced to hide. I doubt if these two sadists would hurt their maids if there were witnesses to such abuse:
Actually, you are defending what anyone with the slightest conscience can see is patently indefensible. There is no excuse for child slavery. None. Shame on those who try to justify it with callous statements like: “The fact is that with widespread poverty, children will be put to work”. How about giving the masses of adult unemployed and underemployed in India the jobs these little slaves are forced to do, and let these children go to schools where they are protected from the wicked persecutions of upper caste teachers and students?
Its very obvious that India is filled with people who think like you, which is why such abominations are tolerated by the government and the culture. I am convinced that only foreign pressure can force an end to child slavery, untouchability etc in India.
Prema,
Learn to read : I said that I was not defending it , I was not making excuses but attempting an explanation. Please do not resort to personal attacks .
Look at the history of slavery everywhere in the world.There were economic forces that made it happen and contributed to the unspeakable.
You know, a few weeks ago I would have been terribly upset at your comments against me. But as I have been reading the stuff that you post here and realize you are so taken in by your own verbiosity that you fail to understand logic and rational discourse. You are filled with hate against India, Indians ,Brahmins and God knows what else.
I am sick and tired of your unqualified statements against India and Indians.Please understand that some Indians may subscribe to the schools of thought that you find shameful – not ALL Indians do.Use qualifiers !
I am not going to spend any more of my time responding to an obviously disturbed individual.
Whats this if not an excuse: “With a country that is third world, has large economic disparities and centuries of feudalism – it will take time for society to evolve to a modern, first world society like the US“?
There are many other nations with “large economic disparities”, who are not “first world society like the US”, that do not make their little children work as slaves in the most inhumane conditions, as India does. Try another excuse for the existence of child slavery/bonded labor in India.
Looks like you’ve not heard of Brazil, or Dominican Republic or Haiti or 3/4 of the countries in Africa or Thailand or Vietnam or …
M. Nam
Since you seem to know so much about this, what do you think are the reasons for bonded child labor? You said
You assertion would hold only if the parents of these bonded children were in fact unemployed.
An ignorant argument. There are plenty other nations that are not first world which do not tolerate widespread child slavery. Amazing that you have never heard of them. India is in the company of Haiti et al, and you find that a good excuse for the continued enslavement of little children?
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm
“With credible estimates ranging from 60 to 115 million, India has the largest number of working children in the world. Whether they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working in the fields sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden away as domestic servants, these children endure miserable and difficult lives. They earn little and are abused much. They struggle to make enough to eat and perhaps to help feed their families as well. They do not go to school; more than half of them will never learn the barest skills of literacy. Many of them have been working since the age of four or five, and by the time they reach adulthood they may be irrevocably sick or deformed-they will certainly be exhausted, old men and women by the age of forty, likely to be dead by fifty.
Most or all of these children are working under some form of compulsion, whether from their parents, from the expectations attached to their caste, or from simple economic necessity. At least fifteen million of them, however, are workingas virtual slaves.3 These are the bonded child laborers of India. This report is about them.”
From the same report (which incidentally is the first result google throws up)
India’s population nearly dwarfs the other nations mentioned too. The credible estimates don’t take that into account.
Amazing heartlessness. You all seem to think that child slavery in India is excusable because the only other option is starvation! Why should slavery and starvation be the only options? Is this what 60 years of democracy has accomplished in India? For shame.
Its worth noting that the excuse makers for child slavery usually also happen to be ardent defenders of casteism. Not surprising at all.
Only serious and sustained international pressure can save India’s child slaves, and its untouchables from exploitation and mistreatment by such people.
That’s seriously pejorative. Then why bother with independence? Why not call up Tony and ask to rejoin his club? Since the country is incapable of taking care of it’s own, the sensible thing wouldve been to not even fight for independence, right?
Obviously the most racist blog I’ve seen. How well the generation born in America has internalized cultural values and perhaps learnt to hate their brown selves, like black communities here used to! Many comments are on par with Aryan Nation’s description of black/brown folk. The employers haven’t even been proved guilty. Some of the generation born here seems to hate India the way white colonizers used to and feels free to comment, often without proof. V curious phenomenon.
BTW, ALL the servants I know personally in India and Pakistan, have received school expenses for their children, employment in companies for various relatives, and many have stolen quite liberally from their employees. Many cooks are dead drunk when called to work. Many take leave for about 4 months out of 12, usually without notice. Since the woman of the house works or needs them for whatever reasons, (ailing parent, young kids, large household, etc.), she usually (gratefully) re-employs them without a murmur.
No one condones cruelty, just remember kids go out to work when there are no options. The first thing a family does when it can afford to do so, is to send its children to school.
FWIW, over 500 teenagers die in the US while working. Perhaps it’s not the same but death is death. (See the recent article in the NYT on white human trafficking: no racist remarks accompany it, the way they probably would have if it had been about brown folk.)
Also, immigration difficulties here provoke all kinds of behavior.
American born folk: The tormented sometimes adopt the behavior and values of the tormentors!?!
Also v easy to say go back if you don’t like it, typical remarks of Aryan Nation types.
New to the internets, are we?
Prema, do you just like to read/ hear what you want to? Runa did not say she is giving this as an excuse for child labor which you apparently did not notice. Stating the reasons is not the same as saying that one supports the current status which is what you conviniently concluded. Unfortunately you don’t seem to realize that unless you understand the reasons behind a problem you cannot solve it.
Also, making sweeping generalizations that India is full of people who support child slavery without giving any facts and figures to back it up is highly offensive to me as an Indian. Lastly your first solution of giving jobs to the unemployed to remove child labor does not make sense. Your second solution to put international pressure and just that is not going to do anything. The problems are tied more to social education and awareness, job creation and stronger implementation of child laws. Only by addressing these issues will you be able to remove forced child labor. At best international pressure might help the discussion started on addressing these issues.
Obviously the most racist blog I’ve seen
Generalize ever?
Ardy,
Thanks for backing me up. I was not “defending” anything – glad that came through.
I thought the purpose of this forum is to share perspectives ,knowledge and experience. Its unfortunate that the perspective that Indians from India bring is not considered by some to be as valid as that of armchair reformists who spew invective without worrying aboout minor details such as veracity.
Yes I know that India has miles to go before it gets to a fair and equitable society ( Which society, if any, can truly say that it is absolutely fair and equitable?) . I only object to unqualified vituperation masquerading as a genuine wish for justice.
Wow. Prema. You excel at ad hominem attacks, generalizations and just plain shouting. The discourse just takes a nose dive once you get involved.
Wheeeew, I see this thread sort of “rejuvenated” itself over the weekend. And I thought it was fizzling out.
These recent bits make the comments about female circumcision sound light and fun. Enjoy yourselves, y’all.
i am with runa.
@$8:
the fact that prema hates indians, koreans and god knows who else is not a reason to call this blog racist. don’t be like msnbc. she does serve one purpose every now and then—a literature survey.
many who comment in the blog do (i realize i know them in real life thanks to blogs they provide) do give time and resources to underprivileged back home in india. it is not true that the blog is full of people whose sole purpose is hate, it also contains many who really care.
See what I mean? The selfishness, deceit and contempt is obscene to the max. If you listen to this twisted character the servants are the privileged ones in India!
And not an ounce of compassion for the millions of child slaves in India. Those who point out their plight are the racists and haters to this casteist, “India Shining” crowd of psuedo-nationalists!
She argues that there is child bonded labor (aka child slavery) in India because India is poor. You may think thats a good reason, but I say thats a disgusting excuse. Poverty does not necessarily lead to child slavery. There are plenty poor countries that are civilized enough to deem the cruel exploitation of little children contemptible. India obviously is not one of them.
Independence does not give India the right to exploit children so cruelly, or to practice apartheid against 150 million hindus. Just as independence did not give South Africa the right to practice apartheid against indians and africans; or give America the right to discriminate against non-whites. South Africa changed because of direct international pressure, and America changed in the 1960s in part because it was facing foreign condemnation for its legalized discrimination against minorities. Do you think these independent nations are better off for having changed, or not?
If it takes american and european pressure to finally bring about some desperately needed changes in India, why would any right-minded indian object? Those who object are either the cruel and greedy ones who benefit from these socio-cultural abominations, or those whose false nationalistic pride trumps any concern for the massive sufferings of children and untouchables in India.
India needs to be relentlessly shamed and sanctioned by the international community till it starts enforcing the laws against child labor, untouchability etc.
bytewords
Glad to be reassured.
Many people on sepia seem to despise Indians, hate themselves for being brown, going by comments. BTW, no other country has managed to move 350 mill folk to middle class or higher in 50 years. That is like uplifting all of America from no electricity, empty supermarkets, scattered schooling to a middle class standard of living. Nowhere else do I see 50% of all govt jobs going to the underprivileged. I do see folk overseas ranting about inefficient ‘Harijan’ officers rather than giving them a chance. (Watch immigration at Bombay airport, how arrivals behave.)I admire the Indians who came here with $8, a degree and temporary papers, sometimes with imperfect English and managed to give their family a good life. Adventurous risktakers with children who are conventional, suburban, afraid to be different from their white neighbors.
Why are we different from the Chinese or the Jews? Never hear the Jews complain about their religion even though they got into plenty of trouble because of it. Or hear the Chinese go on about the many waves of disaster their govt deliberately inflicted on them. They simply get on with life and support their own. Chinese and Jews support their homelands, browns too often merely sneer at Indians and their products: whether it be clothes in the local store or a Bollywood film.
Back to the couple and their servants. I hope someone finds out the truth. Don’t see anyone sneering/snarling at the major employers (middleclass whites and blacks) who employ nannies, cooks, etc.
You missed my point. I’m saying if Indians are incapable (except you I mean) of doing that, they should have never been granted independence in the first place. Obviously it’s meant as an irony.
Are you f’ing kidding me. most of western europe didn’t give a flying $@(# what America was doing, and America didn’t give a flying #()$@# what the rest of the world thought, because simply they were powerless to do anything about it. Those changes came about due to internal resistence, the black minorities ability to tap into a small portion of the “silent majority”
Horrified to think that even one educated person thinks blacks got some justice because of overseas pressure.
Or that independence was ‘given’ to India. Thousands died, were exiled, in jail, had to fight British wars for they were promised freedom, were starved. The glory was that after independence the British and their collaborators were allowed to leave peacefully or stay on with their ill gotten gains. Most of my family, men and women, spent months and years in British jails. You may want to read: Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (Hardcover) by Mike Davis
Hard to over rate the importance of this book, August 29, 2002 Reviewer: Ken McCarthy (New York) ‘There have been droughts and other major agricultural failures in China, India, and Africa for millennium, but the accompanying mass starvations and ecological catastrophes that we tend to associate with these regions did not start occurring in earnest until the British Empire imposed its ‘free’ market discipline on these societies using the end of the barrel of a gun as their means of persuasion.
Who shaped the glass through which most of us unconsciously consider India, China, and Africa? 19th century Brits. Their strategy was simple: paint the citizens of these places as ignorant, progress-resisting savages, then rob them blind and, when they starve by the millions, as they also did in conquered Ireland, tell the world it can’t be helped.
The episodes Davis writes about are in many ways still ongoing because the pattern of ecological mismanagement and social disintegration set off by the British in these regions has become the ‘modern’ norm. We’re just one shift in the weather from even larger catastrophes.’Quoted from Amazon.com
India will tell the US and its Christian-missionary sponsored Congressman to kiss its brown ass, just as it told the European Union to kiss its brown ass.
You are naive and ignorant if you think that America did not face foreign pressure in the form of condemnation of its institutionalized racism from its arch enemies of the time, the communists, during the Cold War.
“ou are naive and ignorant if you think that America did not face foreign pressure in the form of condemnation of its institutionalized racism from its arch enemies of the time, the communists, during the Cold War.”
Are those the only words you know? So you think the Civil Rights act of 1965 and Voting rights act was because of Soviet pressure? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard some crazy things in my time. Was the 13th amendment because of penguin pressure from antarctica?
And what the f*ck is “condemnation” going to do with out the ability to force actual economic sanctions, or imminent military action?
And what the f*ck is “condemnation” going to do with out the ability to force actual economic sanctions, or imminent military action?
It’s not going to do jack shit, and anyone mildly informed about US-India relations knows that alienating India ain’t the idea in Washington at the moment. It’s just the opposite in fact. Prema is getting excited about a toothless Congressional proclamation sponsored by the Evangelical Christian Dalit Freedom Network, which carries no authority. In addition to the proclamation, they sponsored a “Know Your Dalit” day for some high school students, so that, being good white christian kids, they can grow up and sponsor human rights interventions in the east, like liberating the kurds in Iraq.
WEB Dubois tried bringing lynching and other atrocities to the floor of the General Assembly of the UN in the 60s. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was Chairman of the UN Human Rights commission at the time, threatened to resign if it got anywhere near the floor. The Soviets were happy to take up the “Negro” cause, in the name of politics, of course. Given the Russian track record against its minorities, including Indians, we can surmise that it was much the case of crocodile tears.
Prema,
You must be the second coming of Mother Theresa. You should get a Nobel Peace prize.
Indian constitution provides more guarantees to protect and serve the underprivileged than almost all countries. Where else have you seen such drastic reservation system that divides up the govt jobs, highly valuable admissions to prestigious universities & colleges according caste & tribes? I am sure you know that child labor in India is banned. And kids have right to free education until 14 and some states do provide free lunch time meals to entice kids to come to school instead of earning their meals.
Agreed that the enforcement is not nearly 100% and there are various economic and social reasons. The point I am trying to make is there is no systemic oppression ala Apartheid & Slavery. After all India is a democracy and people voted out the ‘Indian Shining’ guys and will continue to vote out bad ones until they get a good government.
And not an ounce of compassion for the millions of child slaves in India.
All baloney, he could care less for the poor. This guy thinks Brahmins are responsible for all of India’s ills, he wants to expunge the imaginary power he thinks they hold. This is just hatred for Brahmins masked as human rights concerns, sort of like British imperial interventions and colonization in the name of abolishing Bengali sati.
And he’s not even polite about it. Sounds like a very frustrated individual. Somehow I imagine someone who looks sorta like this.
come on, no point ganging up against anyone. everyone has their own lenses to see the world in, you don’t change that by putting someone down.
Prema is a guy? You must be confusing him with this one. Which reminds me. I have no bananas today.
You seem to be losing it. Take a deep breath and calm down. I wrote that “America changed in the 1960s in part because it was facing foreign condemnation for its legalized discrimination against minorities“. Do you actually deny that the communists criticised and condemned America’s institutionalized racism during, and even before, the Cold War? If so you are ignorant as hell. And do you actually think its the “craziest thing” to suggest that this moral pressure, during a time America was competing with the Soviets in a global battle for hearts and minds in the non-white third world, must have played a partial role in the decision-making of the american leadership of the time? If so you are very naive.
And why are you ignoring the example of about South Africa? Was it their right as an independent nation to practice apartheid against indians and africans?
India already has laws in place; but it does not have the will to enforce them. If it takes foreign condemnation to jumpstart the will to enforce laws against child slave labor and untouchability, why on earth would any moral person, who finds these practices abominable, object to such sanguine pressure?
Whoa there, Prema! Are you talking about the same America that decided that a crucial way it could battle evil communism was by the meaningful action of inserting the crucial phrase “Under God” in its Pledge of Allegiance? After witchhunting them using the HUAC, of course. Damn, if only all those poor blacks had realized what Kruschev was really saying when he slammed his shoe in the United Nations, they needn’t have battled, struggled, and sacrificed their lives for the cause.
Hogwash. India’s record on human rights has been abysmal as even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged recently:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/02/13/india15303.htm
“India has systematically failed to uphold its international legal obligations to ensure the fundamental human rights of Dalits, or so-called untouchables, despite laws and policies against caste discrimination, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. More than 165 million Dalits in India are condemned to a lifetime of abuse simply because of their caste.”
“On December 27, 2006 Manmohan Singh became the first sitting Indian prime minister to openly acknowledge the parallel between the practice of “untouchability†and the crime of apartheid. Singh described “untouchability†as a “blot on humanity†adding that “even after 60 years of constitutional and legal protection and state support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of our country.â€
“A 2005 government report states that a crime is committed against a Dalit every 20 minutes. Though staggering, these figures represent only a fraction of actual incidents since many Dalits do not register cases for fear of retaliation by the police and upper-caste individuals.
Both state and private actors commit these crimes with impunity. Even on the relatively rare occasions on which a case reaches court, the most likely outcome is acquittal. Indian government reports reveal that between 1999 and 2001 as many as 89 percent of trials involving offenses against Dalits resulted in acquittals.”
The sheer dumbness and heartlessness of the arguments made by the excuse-makers for child slavery and the defenders of casteism is staggering. What the hell is the point of laws that are not enforced? The indian government and the indian culture turn a blind eye to widespread child slavery in India. Otherwise how could this be possible:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1063699,prtpage-1.cms
” We’ve literally handed Washington a weapon to use against us. For years, the US has been taking India to task for not doing enough to curb human trafficking; New Delhi has been content to sit back and do nothing to stop the inhuman trade. So, now along comes ambassador Mulford wielding the big stick and threatening to impose economic sanctions on India if it does not institute a series of measures to check trafficking. Of course, super patriots will bristle at the fact that Washington is lecturing to us on the subject. But perhaps this is exactly what we need to make us sit up and do something about this ghastly trade in people, especially women and children. If the US carries out its threat, Washington can also vote against loans to India from inter-national financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank.”
“The conviction rate for those caught for engaging in trafficking is non-existent and the Immoral Trafficking Protection Act remains largely on paper. If Washington’s hectoring galvanises New Delhi into action, it would be a signal service to the millions who are living in slavery.“
http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/in_depth/carpet-slavery-india.html
“India, the world’s largest democracy, is also home to more slaves than all the other countries of the world combined.1″
“Offering one window into the massive problem of slavery in India, this report examines the most prevalent form of slavery in India – known as debt bondage – using the Indian carpet-making industry as a case study. Included are descriptions of the carpet-making industry, working conditions, and personal stories, with a focus on child slavery.”
“The most common way for children to become slaves is through a system of debt bondage in which they become a security against a family loan (as described above). Most of these children are illiterate and thus unable to keep track of their debt and their salary, which they seldom even receive. Also, debts only increase with the costs of owner-provided food, shelter, and clothing (all of which are inadequate) being added onto the capital sum and interest.
Some children become bonded laborers because they are given to the loom owners on the false promise of an education or good wages (to be sent back home to help the family). Others are simply sold to loom owners because their families cannot afford to feed them. Even more children are simply kidnapped and sold into slavery. In each case, children are enslaved and typically live at the looms where they work. As Anti-Slavery International reports, “The roots [of bonded labor] run deep into history. It was born out of a melange of class, caste, and power and is maintained by commercial, political and bureaucratic vested interests, corruption, psychological as well as physical dominance, and by that most nebulous of all oppressors, custom.
For child slaves, the injustice of having their childhood and livelihood stolen from them by loom owners is compounded by horrific working conditions. Looms are usually one or two to a small village hut, which is little more than 12 feet by 9 feet with mud walls. The huts are poorly lit, with tiny windows heavily barred against thieves and a thick pane of glass or polythene in the roof as the main light source. Children must work for 12 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, without breaks. Owners allow them to sleep for very few hours and often chain them to their looms.
In such terrible conditions, children suffer from deteriorated eyesight; lung disease and tuberculosis from inhaling the wool particles; other communicable illnesses such as fever, stomach problems, and typhoid; chronic kidney and liver problems; deformation of the back and limbs; and malnutrition (many children are underweight, of a smaller height in proportion to their age, and have dental problems).
Children are also beaten and tortured. Loom masters will often beat them with a bamboo staff or other heavy objects if they work too slowly, make a weaving mistake, or cry for their parents. Some children are branded with hot irons. If they cut their fingers (which happens very often on the sharp cutting tools) the loom masters are known to shave match heads into the cut and set the sulfur on fire so that blood will not stain the carpet. Sometimes slaves are hung upside down from trees and poked with cigarettes. Others are killed for attempting to escape.
Many of these children have been working since the age of four or five. By the time they reach adulthood, they may be chronically ill or irrevocably deformed. They will simply be replaced and displaced once they have passed the age of productivity and efficiency – i.e., profitability. Most are likely to be dead by the age of 50 even if they are fortunate enough to survive their enslavement.25″
http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/003390.php
“Historians will look back in puzzlement at the way our 21st century world tolerates the slavery of more than a million children in brothels around the world.
India alone may have half a million children in its brothels, more than any other country in the world. Visit the brothel district in almost any city in India, and you can meet 14-year-old girls who have been kidnapped off the street, or drugged, or offered jobs as maids, and then sold into a world that they often escape only by dying of AIDS.”
Hogwash and stupidness. Your logic is flawed and your imagined martial-Indo-Scythian-Central-Asian-Aryan-Nordic ancestors whose lightness is rivaled only by the albino laugh at your stupid dumbness. I diagnose you as a stupid-head. Breathe deeply and be calm like myself. I am sicker than a hot-headed, macho Korean losing his girlfriend to a white man with an Asian fetish with your caste pride and desire to massacre Bangladeshis. You seem to say that not only is child-slavery acceptable, but you partake in it regularly and use your jatt Brahminical skin, dark by international standards and with no history of world conquest, to look down upon only slightly darker and with no history of world conquest natives of Stupid-stan! Are you not intimidated by the mighty Pathaan or the obviously superior Japanese? Did you know that Vivekananda defeated the Russian Imperial Navy with nothing more than a blink of his big, bulging eyes? What do you say to my unerring and cogent arguments?? Nothing, because you cannot read – which also explains why your comments are so naive and stupid-dumb!!
Look at these bolded and underlined sentences and tell me you are not a heartless caste-defender and oppressor of child-slaves! THESE ARE BOLDED AND UNDERLINED! You are responsible for all of this suffering!
India is a failed state! It has a 93 percent poverty rate and a 1 percent literacy rate! Vivekananda is the Princess of Canada! Indians are n*ggers! We have lower IQs than Hispanics and do not own homes! You are a stupid doody-head if you don’t think Communists pressured the US to pass Title IX and start the Civil Rights Movement!! Only foreign intervention, colonization, and you apologizing for the misery you’ve caused to millions of Dalits will make a difference!!
India is stupid.
“Do you actually deny that the communists criticised and condemned America’s institutionalized racism during, and even before, the Cold War? If so you are ignorant as hell. And do you actually think its the “craziest thing” to suggest that this moral pressure, during a time America was competing with the Soviets in a global battle for hearts and minds in the non-white third world, must have played a partial role in the decision-making of the american leadership of the time? If so you are very naive.”
Those are the only two words you know..
I don’t deny it, I just deny it isn’t worth a cheerio that they did to whatever amount, unless it’s accompanied with some kind of military action and/or economic sanction. “Condemnation” alone does nothing, and nice back tracking with the “partial role” it’s very “Bush administration”
I’ll prove my point…
I hereby condemn you for making idiotic statements without any historical background or knowledge whatsoever!
…see how useless that was? because I’m pretty sure you’ll continue to do it anyway….. on the other hand, congrats, you’ve garned the attention of this site’s “weird al” yankovic. And we know. he only parodies the best of the best.
Wow, I sure am impressed by the time and energy you have invested in carefully studying all my posts 😉
Like I said, you are very naive to think America’s institutionalized racism against non-whites wasn’t hurting it in the global battle against communism for hearts and minds. That condemnation just could not be brushed aside as you imagine.
nice back tracking with the “partial role”
Actually that highlights your dishonesty. Show us where I wrote that communist condemnation of american racism played anything other than a partial role in the adoption of Civil Rights for minorities in America?
If it’s partial then your comparison with India’s holds little water, because India with all it’s inherent maliciousness and imcompassion would need much more, correct?
Either way, any condemnation is more out of political convenience rather than genuine compassion for humanity. Similar the US’s condemnation of China’s human rights violation, and China’s return condemnation of the US response to Katrina, it’s just fuel to say, “Who are you to condemn us? look at what you do.”
By the way, how’s that condemnation of mine working against you?
Here’s another one, specifically tailored:
“I once again, hereby strenuously condemn you for making naive and ignorant statements without any historical background or knowledge whatsoever!”
Anything? Even partial?
Blind eye? Did you read what I wrote about mid-day meal? I can give hundred other examples where govt is doing something and hundred others where govt is ignoring the child labor (no it is no slavery unless you consider their parents as slave owners). If you had said that govt has turned a partially blind eye then I would have give more weight your rants. For you everything is black and white. If India is a failed state then most countries in the world are failed states. According to you US must have been a failed state before the civil rights movement.